This devotion is a monthly ministry of the Pee Dee Baptist Associations, comprised of 32 Southern Baptist churches in Dillon and Marlboro Counties. For more information call 843-774-8062.
Featured this month is the late Rev. Kenneth Cox who was pastor of Beulah Baptist Church, Hamer, at the time of his death. Kenneth was on the original list of newspaper devotion writers, and this is his article published in February 1995. His mother has given permission to reprint his articles.
NO AMOEBAS OR PRIMATES ALLOWED
The first book in the Bible settles the issue of this origin of man by asserting that God created mankind “in His image” The Genesis account shows premeditation and forethought on God’s part when He created man and woman. The term evolved does not appear in the biblical record, and well it should not: man did not evolve, devolve, or revolve from previously existing species. Adam and Eve were real people in a real garden and were fully adults upon creation. No single-celled animals are mentioned nor are chimpanzee-like creatures given the nod as the basis for our human existence. According to the Bible, mankind does not have an amoeba or a primate for a grandparent.
Such special creation by God carried with it some ramifications. One truth is that man was created to reflect the image of God. God breathed the breath of life- called the soul- into man. No record in Scripture indicates that He breathed into animals that same life-giving breath. Even though mankind and animals have a respiratory system, mankind has been given an eternal soul and animals have not. The soul within a person contains the image of God.
Along with the ramification that man was created in God’s image comes the truth that man, therefore, has freedom of choice. Adam and Eve were given the power of speech and the power to be free to choose. The duo in the Garden of Eden by speech and action could change the course of their own personal history- and they most certainly did. They used their power of being in God’s image to disobey Him when they were tempted by the serpent although they could have obeyed God had they chosen to.
Being in God’s image means that one has the freedom to live his life but He will b responsible for the way in which his life is lived. The first humans on earth chose to reject God, but they were evicted from the Garden. God could have made Adam and Eve to be robots, who would obey His every command without personal reflection, but Adam and Eve would not have been truly human and God’s love for them would have been purely mechanical.
Technologically, man has come great lengths from the lone garden of creation; however, spiritually, man is no different from his human ancestors. He or she has God’s image within his or her very body- but he or she may choose to reject the very God who gave him or her life. Out of an act of supreme mercy and love, God looked down through the centuries to a small, lonely hill outside the city of Jerusalem where He would send His only begotten Son, Jesus, to die for the ones He made in the garden- and in the world.
